In 1953, Arthur
Miller's play "The Crucible" ran on
Broadway
at the Martin Beck. Despite being a box office success and acclaimed by
critics and audiences alike, it was considered second-best to his prior
"Death of a Salesman." As Brook Atkinson for the New York Times
reported
the day after the opening, "[T]he theme does not develop with the
simple
eloquence of 'Death of a Salesman.'"

Although the events of the play are based
on the
events that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, Miller was
liberal
in his fictionalization of those events. For example, many of the
accusations of witchcraft in the play are driven by the affair between
farmer, husband, and father John Proctor (Arthur Kennedy), and the
Minister's
teenage niece Abigail Williams (Madeleine Sherwood); however, in real
life
Williams was probably about eleven at the time of the accusations and
Proctor
was over sixty, which makes it most unlikely that there was ever any
such
relationship. Miller himself said, "The play is not reportage of
any kind .... [n]obody can start to write a tragedy and hope to make it
reportage .... what I was doing was writing a fictional story about an
important theme."

The "important theme" that Miller was writing
about was
clear to many observers in 1953 at the play's opening. It was
written
in response to Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities
Committee's
crusade against supposed communist sympathizers. Despite the
obvious
political criticisms contained within the play, most critics felt that
"The Crucible" was "a self contained play about a terrible period in
American
history."

The Crucible (The Movie)

Over twenty years after the opening of the play,
the
eighty-one-year-old
Miller wrote the screenplay for the production of a movie version
of "The Crucible." As was the play, the movie is a
fictionalized
version of the events of Salem in 1692. Additionally, the movie was
been
changed from the play in some minor respects. For example, the
movie
opens with a scene of the town girls sneaking into the woods and
participating
is a ritualistic dance with the slave woman Tituba--until they are all
caught by the minister. In the play this scene was referred to,
but
not performed. Another change is that the Slave woman Tituba is
portrayed
as black, when she was actually an Indian.

Although
hailed by some, the movie was not as well received as was the
play.
One critic stated, "This filmic redux of Miller's theatrical parable is
somewhat out of place on the modern landscape. What was no doubt
a powerful and emotive effort in the 1950s, when it was written as a
scathing
critique of Senator McCarthy's crusade against supposed communist
sympathizers,
falls flat in the '90s." Even the star-studded cast was not
enough
to save the film for some. "Winona Ryder and Daniel Day-Lewis
star
in this two-hour yelling match between good and evil. Not
recommended
for those with a low tolerance for '50s-style misogyny and moralistic
posturing."
Not all were so harsh. Another reviewer stated, "With a head on its
shoulders
and the rawest emotions in its craw, Miller's stage hit "The Crucible"
has become a cinematic grabber for grown-ups (**** out of
four)."